MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Comments
What Brexit (& UK) hasn't addressed these 2 years.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 6:31am
by Peter (not verified) on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 11:56am
How exactly is the "ruling class" punishing those who voted for Brexit? I see no evidence what so ever that they are being punished in any way shape or form. The article claims that polling shows that most of the ruling class are representing districts where a majority support remaining in the EU. That more than 100 seats have switched from supporting Brexit to supporting remain. If that polling is accurate the ruling class is following the desires of the people they represent.
For me this isn't some partisan issue. I have no opinion on Brexit. I follow the story but not deeply enough to decide how I would vote on the issue. It's strictly an issue between GB and the EU that doesn't affect me and there are too many stories for me to have sufficient time to fully understand all of them.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 1:47pm
Britain has no historical record, has never achieved any success, and its people have never sought economic or other ties beyond the sacred waters that provide it a blessed and intolerant isolation from the wider world.
Hard and total Brexit will be a return to the greatness people desire.
Sapiens in populo
by NCD on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 2:18pm
So basically you are saying you don't believe that the people in these 100+ districts are smart enough to know what they want? After two years of further elaboration on the issue, these voters have been hoodwinked by the ruling class in cahoots with the EU to change their minds?
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 2:26pm
by Peter (not verified) on Mon, 08/13/2018 - 10:39am
"delay and threats", even if more true than the made up jive for leaving?
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/13/2018 - 11:09am
Polling guru warns pro-remain party WILL emerge as May struggles to seal the deal
BRITISH polling guru John Curtice said he expects a new anti-Brexit centrist party to emerge amid the political chaos threatening both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.
@ Express.co.uk, Aug. 12
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 2:35pm
Magic 3rd Party. Sounds like David Brooks.... 2006. Party No. 3.
by NCD on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 4:36pm
Ok but cavaet that it doesn't take as much magic in a parliamentary system. And this is like a major issue (maybe equal to like a constitutional amendment would be here?). So I can more easily buy the idea of another party sprouting up, even if temporary, even if it doesn't last long, just to force formation of a coalition with a new attitude towards the issue?
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 4:51pm
I have said before, Brexiteers Nigel Farange and Boris Johnson should return from their residencies in France to be acclaimed as executors of a hard Brexit. Perennial street agitator and EU critic Corbyn also may have a role to play.
The people demand it...?
by NCD on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 5:01pm
Bastille 2.0, heads on a pike, or "rack him" like William Wallace. Yes, there are precedents.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 7:39pm
The people will demand it..! !
by NCD on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 7:58pm
by artappraiser on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:10pm
I noted the comment "with all the old people, the NHS is going to be a drain on the economy". Nice, blame the NHS for old people. Let's just say it clear - "old people are going to be a drain on the economy". So the question for the right is "how're you going to put them down, quietly if possible..." you knew the right's problem with death panels was they weren't actually death panels.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 6:40pm
I have so many conflicted thoughts about Brexit. I lived there during my college years and have been back so often, it always felt like a second home. When the Leave vote won, it broke my heart. It hit me like a personal rejection. People would console me with a version of that line from Catch 22 - “they’re not rejecting YOU, they’re rejecting EVERYONE”. But that didn’t help for some reason.
After the vote, I began to see the British as overall xenophobic or xeno-averse at the very least. My impression of them and their relationship to Europe crystalized into a sense of it being alienating, at best transactional. Even the most passionate Remainers don’t want to be a part of Europe, they just want the extra bump in GDP or convenient visa-free travel or EU research funding or the option of a retirement home on the Costa del Sol. It’s like trying to convince someone that they should stay in a loveless marriage because moving house is such a hastle. To Brits, Europe is a place you go for work or vacation. It’s elsewhere. Their country, in their emotional geography, is not part of Europe. I think everyone in the EU is aware of that, it’s pretty uncontroversial. Yet they keep clinging on to UK membership in the hope that one day the Brits will learn to love them.
I don’t see it happening this way - by nudging the UK into a second vote that might, in the short panic-induced window of the next months, just elicit a temporary narrow majority for returning to the loving arms of Brussels. You just know the pendulum will swing back to a majority for leaving, when the tabloids start bitching about the next big curvature-of-bananas scandal, or more likely the next 7 yr budget framework. What then? Transactional as they are, they’ll want another vote, and we’ll have to waste another two years on The BReakup part deux. Europe can’t move forward with never-ending Brexit fires to be put out. Neither can Britain. It’s a huge distraction, on both sides of the channel.
What about the costs? I don't mean to be flippant about it but I find the dangers overstated. I’m not saying the remainer camp is outright lying, but the numbers that are thrown around are a lot less scary than the headline numbers suggest. They predict 5% less GDP growth given a hard Brexit over the next ten years? That may not be great. But they also project 5% less population growth over the next ten years with falling EU immigration. So fewer people eating a smaller pie - but everyone still gets the same share. That seems to have gone unmentioned. Or I may have missed something. You also get to be more sanguine about the trade issues when you look at Norway and Switzerland, both outside the Customs Union with hard borders to the EU, and see that the oh-so-dreaded "trade friction" isn't hurting them much. Nor do those daunting 3% WTO tariff levels which will go into effect in the case of a Hard Brexit seem so frightening up close. As the kids say, meh.
Another thing that goes unmentioned - opportunity cost. Brexit sucks all the media air out of the room. Brexit or no Brexit, there is a lot the UK can and should do to improve welfare and improve productivity. They’re 30% less productive than their northern European counterparts and Brexit hardly matters when it comes to sorting out the complex mix of issues that need to be addressed in that sphere. Quit bitching about Brussels and deal with your own domestic shit. As they say, be the change you want to see in the world: sort yourself out instead of blaming the outside.
The level of Brexit discourse on both sides is pretty piss-poor. The Remainer argument has always been, in a nutshell, “you have no choice, you are powerless, just give up”. The Leavers for their part just try to drown the opposition out by barking FREEDOM Braveheart-style. No one even raises the issue of whether the Brits want to be a part of the European project of ever closer union. That is just obviously unappealing to all of the Queen’s subjects. So what do they want?
(When Hollywood finally get around to making the Brexit Movie, they should cast Ryan Gosling and have him stand in the rain screaming his Notebook catchphrase “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” at a confused and conflicted BRachel McAdams - Anyway, I think that was his catchphrase, don’t make me watch it again…)
by Obey on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 7:19am
This was really helpful, Obey.
I like your paragraph about opportunity cost and am surprised by the stat. I thought the entitled-not-to-be productive thing was gotten over with Thatcher shock.
The comment about the poor quality of discourse on both sides reminds me of how they have a long tradition of an advocacy style of journalism and debate so no surprise there, it's been centuries of training. Not good for making policy or sausage, leaving out inconvenient details.
They really could inspire the world by coming up with a "third way". Done it before. Wish they could do it again. And I don't just mean the Blair thing. When I think on it, going all the way back, mho, their culture so much more innovative about running an Empire than Spain or France. Leave out whether it was evil or good or indifferent stuff, it was often a different approach, very flexible to adpating other cultures, not a blunt instrument.
by artappraiser on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 11:06am
P.S. Just throwing this crazy thought out there. Comes to mind how common it is for Brits to love California. Always thought it was because it's the opposite of their environment and culture and they get inspired by that. Well, California is the world's 5th largest economy, has it's own distinct culture, doesn't wait for the rest of the country to do a lot of stuff but still stays in the union.
by artappraiser on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 11:13am
I like that, the California model for how Brits should think about Europe.
by Obey on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 1:04pm
On the history angle, I should really brush up. We always tend to think the level of discourse used to be better, I can't really judge. One thing is the long tradition of tabloids used as mouthpieces for a variety of billionaires and their cronies, an advocacy journalism that has spread to television as well. I find even BBC interviews annoying to watch. Another is the inclination towards poll-tested disciplined messaging which has reached its reductio ad absurdam un the current Maybot model of discourse. Neither tendency is new or unique to the UK.
The sense of impoverished public debate is all the starker from my pov here in Switzerland. TV debates are lively but very much on topic. It comes down to a respect for the viewer.
by Obey on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 12:51pm
Imagine if they'd put all that energy these last 3 years into making the EU better, rather than bitching at every turn and blaming Brussels for their own internal issues or the new challenges of our time. (Replace that # with 30 years if you like). Much rested on that "special" US relationship that's now not worth a pot to piss in - embracing Trump = embracing Putin & Novichok, a non-starter. Time to get serious.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 12:59pm
Good to read you all on this.
Right now, I'd just say England has fallen back to its post 1945 position of sucking at a lot of things. Their media has too much right-wing drivel. Their firms have been swallowed by a City-centered economic focus. The white working class is being headed up by Corbyn, which is a bit goofy. And so on.
Nonetheless. I still prefer London to any major European city [had lots of Rome this Summer, took it firmly off the list.] Racial integration is better in lots of ways [see the football team this Summer.] They're still funny [hello Germany! Still!], make great music [hello France! Still!] and lots of other art.
To me, staying in was a no-brainer for Britain. And New Labour - for all their love of Iraq and the City faults - had made real progress in remaking the country over into a more European version of Britain. All gone to waste now.
Out of Europe, Britain turns to shit. First off, they'll break up, Scotland and co. will go, and the Old Guard Anglos return to running England, untouched, from their conservative powerbases. Wanting that is like wanting the US South to be its own nation. A f*cking waste of time. Because even though there's tonnes of great people in England, they're gonna lose 55%-45% for a long time.
Remain, Return, whatever you wanna call it - but forget about St George and being run by shits like Boris.
by Q (not verified) on Sun, 08/26/2018 - 12:09pm
Redux. If the Brits can adapt to Meghan as this gen's Lady Di, well, things weren't quite as bad as they portrayed.
Then Remorse - oddly enough it seems less the Muslims and more the Poles they were whinging about to start with, even though as typical the Poles were handling a lot of their crap work - they're probably already seeing an uptick in Brits having to handle their own trash, and somehow I imagine roofing fell off the list of "core British competences" the last years.
Reshuffle - lost in all the focus on Germans and French, Germans and French, is that for a lot of people that core Europe is flyover country on the way elsewhere - often meaning someplace more interesting and less expensive. It's not the same deck of cards as 25 years ago, as you noted the once de rigeur Rome is less a draw than elsewhere, and for all the claims of shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic, this isn't 2008, even Greece isn't such dismal science as 4 years ago,
Restrict - ayup, unbridled immigration is no longer a thing, and while Angie survived, Europe's in no mood for a repeat of this kind of open border, arms-wide-open acceptance. Which UK had it easy all along compared to everyone else - just police your damn ports, for gawd's sakes - EU rules allow that - but they'd rather bellyache to get that populist furor up - works in Hungary and Austria, why not the Midlands, eh? Except populists seem to have worn out welcome a bit, especially noting their Russian backers - even Catalunya has settled back into its traditional torpor and refocusing on football, art & paella rather than politics.
Re-engage - here's the one I've been waiting for. 2 dismal lost years watching the lamest of the incompetent wave their hands pretending they could fly, and fall on their noses, brush off, do it again... and while Q notes that Brussels is lame and bureaucratic (the lack of full-bore "democracy", perhaps with a capital D, so far hits me as a "meh, close enough"), the lost point was that the UK could have actually tried to make Brussels work better, rather than sitting on this cross-the-channel perch launching harangues at it while trying to whittle down as much as possible any money it sends to the EU. Of course the Brits have trouble making UK institutions work - a hidden fact that became less hidden as they tried to retreat from Dunkirk again - so maybe trying to make things better in Brussels *AND THE REST OF THE CONTINENT* was doomed to more Boris Johnson failure, but my bet is at least it wouldn't have gotten worser.
Resign - yes, it's going to happen, resigned to the facts, simply because of inertia and economics and shifting demographics, and all that folderol. The rocket didn't have enough escape velocity, and so it's either intercept & put it out of its memory or watch it crash, and here I believe the no-deal exit isn't really the game of chicken they're all ginned up for. The one big curiosity I have in all of this is whether Labor crumbles and gets replaced with something less, er, Corbynish. But here I plead ignorance - I don't quite understand how Corbyn rose to power, nor how he stays there, and why it isn't obvious what a wasted opportunity he's been for some time now. Will he resign as well? One can only hope. New elections seem far away, nevertheless, which is still hard to figure whether matters - i.e. if it helps conservatives, keeps the power structure in Parliament, or God knows what else. But at least if breaking up ain't so hard to do, breaking up breaking-up might be. We hope.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 08/26/2018 - 12:54pm
two very loverly comments, enjoyed both. Returning the favor, here's some interesting proof of the puddin' that's making over there in merry old', Breixit or no:
....In the 2011 census 1.25 million people identified as mixed race, making it the fastest-growing ethnic group in the UK....Those photographed represent great portions of the world – Japan, Jamaica, Malaysia, Sweden, Iran, China, South Africa – but also provide a portrait of contemporary Britain.....
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/26/2018 - 3:11pm